Recently, a post containing the statement of Erling Haaland, a member of the Norwegian national football team and a player of the Premier League club Manchester City, has been circulating on the Internet.
What is being claimed?
Among the numerous posts that have circulated, there is a conversation between Haaland and a journalist.
The conversation goes like this –
Erling Haaland: I want to win 5 Ballon d’Ors like Cristiano Ronaldo
Reporter: Why not 7 like Messi.?
Haaland: I said I want to win them not steal them
Check out some of the Facebook posts circulating on the claim here (archive), here (archive), here (archive), here (archive) and here (archive).
Fact Check
According to the Rumor Scanner investigation, Erling Haaland did not comment on the Ballon d’Or involving Messi and Ronaldo rather the comment is being circulated using his name without any reliable source.
At the start of the investigation, the Rumor Scanner team conducted a manual and keyword search of international media and soccer-related media websites, but found no information about such comments or conversations by Haaland.
Investigation based on sources
The Rumor Scanner team found at least three clues in the posts circulating about Erling Haaland’s Ballon d’Or comments involving Messi and Ronaldo.
Some posts (1) have used the name of a Facebook page called ‘Football Daily Goal’ as the source of the comment.
Screenshot source: Facebook
Later, we found the related post published on the page called Football Daily Goal yesterday, March 28 at noon.
But the post also did not cite any source for Haaland’s comments.
In a subsequent investigation, the Rumor Scanner team found that some posts (1) mentioned the name of the international football news outlet Goal as the source of Haaland’s comments.
But a manual and keyword search on Goal’s website did not turn up any information about Haaland’s comments or conversations.
Later, upon investigation, some posts (1) appeared to circulate with a video of Haaland’s interview as the source for Haaland’s comments.
In tracing the source of the video, using reverse image search the original video, published on July 6, 2018 was found on a YouTube channel called Martha Nag.
Haaland gave the video interview when he was playing for Molde FK in 2018. But analyzing the video, there is no information about Messi Ronaldo or Ballon d’Or.
It should be noted here that when this video was recorded (2018), Messi’s number of Ballon d’Ors was five.
But in recently leaked posts, there is information about Messi winning seven Ballon d’Ors.
Hollande’s comments are therefore unlikely to happen in 2018. If he had, he would have been referring to Messi’s five Ballon d’Ors, not seven.
That is, The websites or Facebook pages mentioned as sources in the posts circulating about Haaland’s comments did not find any information about the comments. Besides, as there is no information about this in the international media, it appears that only a fabricated comment is being circulated in the published posts.
How was the claim spread?
On August 28, a sarcasm Twitter account called Troll Football, we found a tweet from Haaland with the same comment. The tweet, which has so far been viewed 14.7 million times, also did not cite any sources.
The screenshot of this tweet has also spread widely on Facebook.
Additionally, in the comments of some of the posts that have circulated, a screenshot of a tweet by a Twitter account ‘Fotballandslaget’ with the username @timesofball on 27 March was provided, showing the same comment by Haaland.
But no related tweets can be found on the Twitter account ‘Fotballandslaget’, but the tweet can be found on a Twitter account with the username timesofball. Goal is also shown as a source in this tweet. However, no such information was found on Goal’s website.
On further investigation, the Rumor Scanner team found a post containing the claim on March 23 on Facebook. There was no reference to this post either.
The same comment was spread in the name of Brazilian footballer Vinicius Junior. See a post published on August 22 here.
Moreover, the same comment was also spread in the name of French footballer Kylian Mbappe. See a similar post published on August 28 here.
But, there is no information about these two players making such comments.That is, the same comment about the Ballon d’Or involving Messi and Ronaldo has spread by mentioning at least three players by name.
Bottom Line
Recently, a post containing the statement of Norwegian football player Erling Haaland has spread on the Internet, where it is claimed that Haaland wants to win 5 Ballon d’Or like Cristiano Ronaldo, and does not want to win 7 Ballon d’Or by settling like Messi. But the investigation revealed that Haaland did not make such a comment. Although several sources have been mentioned as the source of this information, no information has been found in those sources. Moreover, the same comments were also spread in the name of Vinicius Jr. and Kylian Mbappé.
So, the information circulated on Facebook claiming that Erling Haaland made a comment about the Ballon d’Or involving Messi and Ronaldo is completely false.
Sources
- Goal: Erling Haaland
- Rumor Scanner’s own analysis
